Western Fictioneers Announces New Release -- Stories Along . . . THE HUNGRY TRAIL by Christine Matthews

A frontier con man who claims he can raise the dead...a prisoner desperate to escape from the hellhole of Yuma Prison...a legendary Texas Ranger...a famous gunfighter and peace officer turned newspaperman...a family that's both dangerous and strange...These are only some of the characters who inhabit the tales in STORIES ALONG...THE HUNGRY TRAIL by Christine Matthews. Poignant, expertly plotted, and filled with compelling characters, these stories capture the human drama of the Old West and the people who lived in that time and place, and will stay with the reader long after the hungry trail has come to an end.

EXCERPT

The trail is always hungry. No matter how much you feed it, it always wants more—never satisfied. It chews up animals, leaving behind only bones to bleach out in the blazing sun. Many have offered a sacrifice to the earth, tearfully burying a wife or little brother, deep down, begging for forgiveness because they're forced to leave a loved one behind. They pile rocks to mark the grave and keep wild things away. But they never stop to think that the trail is their real enemy.

Old ones, too tired to go on, stumble and finally fall. They pray with every step for renewed strength. But they can't get back up. The trail grabs hold of them, never letting go until they all become one with the dirt.

And when the trail is thirsty, it drinks up the rain, the blood, anything wet. It doesn't care. Sometimes, when it's had enough, which isn't often, it spits up a flood. But sooner or later, everything soaks back down, causing the trail to parch and crack again, craving only to drink more. Men who respect the trail do better than naive travelers who insult the ancient soil they ride over in their wagons, for they never forget the trail is alive. Dirt, grass, even the rocks, forever chewing, gnawing at the life moving above it.


I was arrogant. But it didn't take long for me to learn that the trail isn't particular. It'll beat the hope right out of a man—make him its slave. 

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Six-guns and Slay Bells: A Creepy Cowboy Christmas

 

Now Available

Put on your Santa hat and saddle up for this collection of creepy Christmas stories from the Western Fictioneers, the world's only organization of professional authors devoted solely to Western fiction. 'Tis the season for ghosts, vampires, monsters, aliens, and other bizarre creatures to make these Old West holiday tales truly special. Legendary Western author Robert J. Randisi spins the spectral yarn of "Sheriff Santa and the Ghost of Two Gun Jim". Peacemaker and Spur Award winning author Troy D. Smith takes the reader on a murderous Christmas journey to "Bitter Mountain". New York Times bestseller and Peacemaker Award winner James Reasoner writes about a strange encounter on the Staked Plains in "Presents for One and All". Larry D. Sweazy, two-time winner of the Will Rogers Medallion Award for Western fiction, tells the story of an epic battle between good and evil in "The Longest Night". An isolated stagecoach station under siege by Apaches is the setting of Cheryl Pierson's "The Keepers of Camelot", a tale of rebirth and redemption. These and many other stories by some of today's top writers in the Western field make SIX-GUNS AND SLAY BELLS the most unusual Western Christmas anthology ever published.

SIX-GUNS AND SLAY BELLS is the newest anthology from the Western Fictioneers.  Founded in 2010 to promote the oldest genuine American art form, WF is the only writers organization composed entirely of professional authors of traditional Western fiction.  Its worldwide membership includes best-selling, award-winning authors as well as the brightest up-and-coming new stars in the Western field.

SIX-GUNS AND SLAY BELLS is a collection of 15 Christmas-themed original Western stories with paranormal elements including ghosts, vampires, monsters, and aliens. The best-selling, award-winning line-up of authors includes Robert J. Randisi, Chuck Tyrell, Troy D. Smith, C. Courtney Joyner, Matthew P. Mayo, Douglas Hirt, James Reasoner, Jerry Guin, Charlie Steel, Clay More, Cheryl Pierson, Larry D. Sweazy, James J. Griffin, Christine Matthews, and L.J. Washburn.

Western Fictioneers previously published THE TRADITIONAL WEST, the largest anthology of all-original Western fiction ever published, which met with critical acclaim and included the Best Short Fiction winners of both the Peacemaker Award, given by WF, and the Spur Award, given by the Western Writers of America, as well as several other finalists for those awards.  Earlier this year WF published BLOODY TRAIL, the first book in the Wolf Creek series of collaborative novels with more to come.

This is an anthology you're not going to want to miss. Trade paperback only $12.00 E book $2.99.

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